


Building Midnight

by Sombre (MisterMental)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-25
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:16:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisterMental/pseuds/Sombre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles on how the exiles of Midnight Crew were building their town in the heart of a desert. Pairings may appear in future chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They’ve been building this town for several months already. They got two houses done, small houses with two floors and a flat roof, looking as ‘capital’ as possible with their poor resources desert had to offer. Today Slick ordered to start a road – one of the avenues, he said. Droog imagined it unbelievably vividly – a smooth, cold surface, small borders edging it, with a green ‘One-Way’ sign pointing away from the desert. It will be flooded with all sorts of wanderers that will emerge from the lifeless wasteland like tide at the sight of the full moon. And they, the Midnight Crew, will be a black spot among them, the dark creators of this place.

Slick didn’t talk much, it was never in his habit, but their future town was a subject that easily loosened his tongue. Deuce liked it, it was like storytelling to him – he listened with big eyes and mouth opened from excitement, as Slick told them about avenues and sidewalks, street lamps and houses, casinos and bars soon to be here. Droog could never admit, but those stories got him too, though he successfully hid it under his usual imperturbable calm. It made him want to walk those avenues under those lights, flashing signs inviting him into dark corners of the dark city, blinking promisingly and conveniently. Boxcars said he wanted a cinema. With soap operas and romantic stories all over the screens. Those statements always made Slick sick, but he listened and nodded anyway – yeah, yeah, whatever, there’ll be every fucking thing you want. Droog didn’t want anything in particular. He just wanted their city, right the way it came up in Slick’s head. He agreed with Spades in that, for an exception.

\- And what will happen next? – asked Deuce, eyes shining, after Slick ended his speech, - what will we do after we build it?

\- We’ll rule it, - said Slick mater-of-factly and aggressively, clenching a fist in front of Deuce’s face, - we’ll rule our town.

Droog liked his boss better when he talked nonsense, really. At least he was a little less irritating like that. But when Diamonds saw their leader like this, determined and firm, with power sparking in his white eyes, turned into slits, he couldn’t say he didn’t like him like that. He felt that Spades can do whatever is on his mind without asking the cost, and it will be the only right way. And that look on Slick’s face made Droog want to finish this town as quickly as possible. Just to see how Slick is going to rule it.

\- Rule, - repeated Deuce, spellbound, looking at Slick’s fist. Boxcars chuckled at his expression.

\- Yeah.

Droog watched the desert slowly retreat under their Midnight town (‘soon to be here’) and murmured under his breath:

\- We will.

The road had been started the next day.


	2. Chapter 2

From all sorts of grotesque, strange or inappropriate things that desert generously threw into them, that piano was the strangest. It was midnight black, dusty, cracked up on the side, but still functioning. They found it not long after starting their construction site, hardly a mile away. Droog remembered Slick’s face when he saw it. All the anger and usual unmotivated, pure spite seemed to leave him for an impossible moment as he stepped to the instrument. Deuce wanted to say something, but Droog roughly shut him up. Slick approached the dark body of that piano, reached out a hand and pushed one black key. The sound of it, a bit untuned and muffled, went straight to Droog’s spinal cord, sending shivers up his vertebras.

\- I want it in the house, - said Slick firmly.

\- But the house is not finished yet… - started Boxcars, but was immediately interrupted:

\- I said I fucking want it in the house! – Slick turned to his usual self like fingers snapped. Droog was the first one to get to the instrument and stand at its corner, inviting the other to help carry it. It took them the rest of the day (if that faintly delimited space of time in this everlasting noon could be called “a day”) to transport that piano to their building house.

Droog heard him playing nearly every “night” after that, when everyone of the Crew is supposed to be asleep. Droog woke up at the sounds of tortured piano, but only to realize that the torture was sweet and every bang of the keys, every violent sound is perfectly proper and necessary, every note is bleeding ecstasy. He silently slid out of his bed and out of the house, rustling as quietly as he could to Slick and his piano. Slick felt his present, but never turned to him; just smashed keys harder, pushing the pedal with all his weight, making sounds slice thin air like a knife. Droog watched as Slick punctuated every pitching high note with a chord at his other hand, his back bending like a question mark, sweat dropping on piano’s body from his forehead.

Slick always finished playing with a terrifyingly loud chord that was simply striking all the keys he could reach, and then defining silence.

Droog always had a strange feeling after that, a huge lump of unusual emotions that expressed themselves in a sudden, uncontrolled urge to approach his leader, still sitting at the piano, and touch him. Maybe just to reassure that he’s real, that all of this is real. Maybe for some other reason he didn’t want to name, like those feeling the piano caused. He allowed it once. He stepped up, laid hands on Spades shoulders. His digits clung on Slick’s bare shell, and a single word accidentally blurred itself through Droog’s lips:

\- Jack…

It worked like a pulled trigger on Slick, and he roughly shook off Diamonds’ hands.

\- It’s Slick, you idiot, - he snarled and stormed away, leaving Droog at the side of the midnight black instrument.

Droog stood there for a minute or two more, tried pushing one of the keys, listened to the sound hanging in the air like empty gallows, and then left too, thinking about strange things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to picture Droog a little different from his usual (and definitely more suitable) coldblooded cruel self. I hope it worked out for this chapter.


End file.
